Posted
by
Soulskill
on Friday December 17, 2010 @07:34AM
from the snuffing-out-long-fading-hopes dept.

ndogg writes "There is no longer any uncertainty surrounding the release of Unreal Tournament 3 for Linux. It's official: the port is now dead. No reasons were given, but no one should be waiting for it anymore, if anyone still was."

UT3 servers are mostly bereft of players, which is a crying shame given that it's a fantastic game that most current rigs by gamers can run at max settings. The high system requirements were a barrier to entry to players when it first launched, but that's no longer true now. Check out the current Unreal Tournament 3 server stats [gametracker.com]

UT 2004 has more than twice the number of players & servers running: UT2k4 server stats [gametracker.com]. Sure, its mechanics wer

UT players quite often fantasize about "superior than quake". You know why quake players don't talk about that? Because they're busy playing.I had all UT titles, sold them soon. Yes, they're prettier. But I certainly did not enjoy the gameplay, nor the childish online opponents. Of course, YMMV.

UT3 wasn't very good, and you would be disappointed by it compared to the first 3 UT titles ('99', 2003, 2004).The bad part is you missed out on some OK mods, but many of those have either gone UDK or to their own released title anyway.. unfortunately it looks like there is no intention on porting UDK to *nix either.. which considering they have/will/should port it to BSD^H^H^HMacOSX, it's only a hop-skip-and-jump away... and that makes me sad.

I agree with the previous two posters. Been playing UT for more than a decade now. UT3 sucks. It's pretty, but not a fun game. The linux port was confirmed early on, and there was talk of even supporting UnrealED under linux too. When release-day came, they didn't even have a linux SERVER ready, which meant that the 80% or so of the servers normally used for UT games couldn't even host the new version.

That right there was pretty much the stamp of authority that there would be no UT3 client linux port. When

Well, that's a coincidence: It's officially dead for Windows too. And has been since almost three months after launch.

I really liked the Unreal Tournament games (even though I'm an id Software fanboy), and definitely the first part was a lot better than its counterpart at the time; Quake 3. Whereas Quake 3 had obvious masterlike AI-bots, the AI in Unreal Tournament always seemed to resemble a bit more humanlike play-style.
UT2004 was great too, and had some awesome new gametypes, which really worked well. They were planning on releasing a new update for it every year (hence the 2004 addition to the title), but failed at doing that (probably because they discovered their new cash cow; Gears of War).
Unreal Tournament 3's figures were very bad: Already after a month of release, the servers got less and less. As of today there's only a handfull of servers left (for the UK at least), with even less players.
I must admit myself that I also didn't play UT3 as much as I played the previous titles.

So to be honest, I can't really see too much of a loss in this (except that it would have been easier for other Unreal engined games to be ported over to Linux).

i played UT 99 a LOT (even on the dreamcast when i didnt have a PC in my room yet), when 2k3 came out i had my own PC with a GF4 and i enjoyed the hell out of it, 2k4 made it even better, it is still one of the games that i bother installing if i want to play a pc-game, also ran it on linux several times.

Then ut 3 came out, and it was rather unimpressive, i did buy it from steam at one point, but i hardly played it

+1. I played the hell out of UT2004, but for some reason never really got into UT3. Despite decent initial sales figures on launch day, the game bombed with everyone I know. After a few months the community was very small, and it stayed that way despite attempts to grow it by majorly dropping the price so soon after launch. I can't see a Linux port bringing in any significant amount of players.

There are thousands of 2k4 players on every day right now to a couple hundred UT3 players.

It bombed on launch day because they didn't have the linux server port ready. That's a good indication of how serious they took linux. It bombed in general because they never got a community of players. If a large percentage of your players can't play on launch day, and you overhaul your editor to the point that it can't be casually used, you kill a large percentage of your community. Forcing everyone to use a GameSp

I played the hell out of the first Unreal Tournament. The combination of interesting weapons, good level design, the teleport disk ("translocator"), and a great modding engine just made it an awesome package, and the community was quite vibrant. I was involved in one of the better clans at the time. Unfortunately they listened too much to whiney fans and nerfed the teleport disk, whom users were using...ahem... to its full potential (telefrags ahoy!). Nerfing the disk changed CTF game pace from basketball t

I wouldn't deny that some people enjoyed it. I was speaking from the perspective of someone who feels the first UT defined the blueprint for the series. Adding vehicles and open levels was a pretty severe departure from that gameplay formula. I like donuts, but that doesn't mean I want donuts in my cereal. YMMV.

It's not really worth developing games for Linux. The hardcore gamers - the bulk of the market all use Windows. As a result, anyone with any significant interest in PC games will install Windows. This will naturally perpetute the extreme bias towards windows from developers.

The only people who will not install Windows at any cost are those with a moral objection to non-free software. These people aren't willing to buy non-free games either.

I won't install Windows, but I can buy a non-free game every now and then. I'm not much of a gamer, I just don't have the time for it anymore, but I did buy StarCraft 2, and I would have bought Civ5 if it wasn't such a huge pain in the ass to get the demo to work with the pile of crap called Steam.I have no objections to non-free end-user software, but I do object to the underlying system and libraries being non-free...

You have to accept that when you're using workarounds to get software running on an OS it wasn't designed for you will often run into some issues. Steam runs great on Windows or Mac (there are those who hate the DRM but that has nothing to do with how the client actually performs). If Valve made a Steam client for Linux I'm sure it would run quite well, the problem is which distro do they make it for? So far as I know (and I am admittedly a novice when it comes to Linux) it is not easy to release an appl

Ah, well there's my Linux novice status showing, I wasn't aware of that. Out of curiosity are there any major limitations to do that?

Well, the advantage of using LSB is that your software doesn't need to provide it's own libraries and deal with security updates for those libraries, as the distribution will do that with their LSB distribution as opposed to going solo and providing all the libraries, libc etc. in your own package.

That aside, the only issue I have had when working with LSB is the developer kit

that's what folks in the industry call "hand waving". i tried to install some games from the ubunto "app store" or whatever it's called. one out of the 5 i tried worked. obviously there's some complexity involved in making a linux app cross-dist.

Some people use their gaming PCs for things other than gaming, such as working from home. Even among those who don't, For fans of classic games designed for Windows 3.1 or Windows 98, Windows XP Mode could be useful. The 64-bit operating systems can't run Windows 3.1 games at all without some sort of virtual machine emulating a 32-bit CPU. And I seem to remember that plenty of 32-bit games from the 9x era have trouble running in 32-bit Windows Vista and Windows 7, let alone 64-bit, even with compatibility m

Not completely accurate. According to somewhat vague statements made by various game companies over the years, the raw numbers for Linux are absolutely there. The real problem is, far too many people would rather pirate than pay. As a result, pirates essentially prevent Linux from becoming a viable commercial gaming platform. The only solutions left to game companies are to dramatically increase the per unit costs (to cover the massive per unit burden imposed by pirates) or simply not support the platform.

What if some group of companies decided it was good lateral strategy to shake up the status quo and cranked out some 7 high powered games for Linux only, no DRM, fitted for about 7 of the best distros? Forget "ROI" etc, do it just to create total envy to make make both the Windows camps and Apple fans drool with envy. (Same vein, pay for 30 devs for 2 years to spruce up the "boring" connecting stuff all over the Linux landscape.)

It would be like turning the Bazaar into the Linux Mall. The problem with Dolla

Of course, this is the same reason pirates damage the economy in other sectors too. For whatever reason, pirates just assume that only multi-billion dollar mega-corporations are affected by piracy and they are fighting the good fight; whic

... even getting pirates to stop destroying the economy and ecosystem... Of course, this is the same reason pirates damage the economy in other sectors too.

I'm not advocating piracy, but I haven't actually seen any hard data backing up this assertion. In the music sector I've even seen evidence to the contrary (pirates buy more music). All of the sectors plagued with piracy are ticking along just fine, last I checked, and even showing some decent amount of growth. The premise that piracy is harming anyo

I've read three studies over the last several years which more or less (slight variance in each study) which support the numbers given. Roughly, up to 50% piracy on Windows. Up to 80% piracy on Linux. And up to 20% piracy on OSX.

So its easy to see why Linux has a reputation of being associated with socialistic, anti-capitalistic, freeloading, people. For what its worth, Android (which is Linux based and attracts the same people largely because it is Linux), has once again vindicated these studies. Piracy is

I've read three studies over the last several years which more or less (slight variance in each study) which support the numbers given. Roughly, up to 50% piracy on Windows. Up to 80% piracy on Linux. And up to 20% piracy on OSX.

Not denying that you have, or that such studies exist, but you still really need to reference them. I'm not what these studies consider piracy, for example. It is completely possible to run a full-featured Linux box without ever touching pay software, so it probably isn't software

And how high is the additional cost of porting to linux?The game is already written, all the graphics and sound already exist, you just need to port the code and the difficulty of that varies on the apis used (directx vs opengl), ofcourse it also becomes a lot easier if you already have ports for similar platforms such as osx.

The cost of a port is pretty marginal compared to the cost of initially writing the game (especially if the game was originally developed with portability in mind), so even a relativel

There is no single dollar amount. The price can be all over the board too. And even beyond a port, support and testing is frequently a large portion of any porting effort. Pirates frequently add to the support burden but not the pay off, so its a another area where pirates hurt both the ecosystem and the economy.

You also need to keep in mind, games are so large and complex these days, more often than not, third party packages are used for various tidbits. In some cases these packages are simply not availabl

The port is largely done. Ryan Gordon historically did many/all the ports for the UT franchise. (Among many other games - he's the god of porting games to linux.) In late 2009 or so he had screenshots of UT3 working, and said it was largely done.

If there's no port for UT3 to linux by now, you can be guaranteed that it was a decision by Epic not to release it. Either due to some DRM/proprietary code they wedged in there, (There was a lot of talk about PhysX being an issue, if I recall.) or because they jus

Now that's a load of crap. I won't run Windows at any cost because it's not worth any cost to me. I am more productive in Linux, I enjoy customizing my experience, and I don't like having to run 3 heavyweight scanner software to keep my system free of virus, spyware, and malware. It's a better experience for me, so why should I waste time keeping a Windows install patched and safe?

And for the record, I do happily pay for games that run on Linux, and don't pirate software/music/video like my Windows using

The only people who will not install Windows at any cost are those with a moral objection to non-free software.

I wouldn't say I won't install Windows "at any cost"... but I'm not exactly looking forward to that ever being the case. I'd have to have a really burning reason to do so. It's just become so... alien.

No Compiz, not even workspaces; no centralized update and install; having to install firewall, antivirus, antispyware, wasting resources and still never be sure what's crawling inside your PC; apps in

It's not really worth developing games for Linux. The hardcore gamers - the bulk of the market all use Windows.

It is more troublesome than that: The bulk of the market uses game consoles. These days it isn't exactly uncommon for Windows to get games late, badly broken or not at all, as the PC port is an afterthought, not the main target. Getting games to Linux in a time where the PC gaming market isn't exactly in the best conditions is rather hard.

The only hope I have left for games on Linux is random indie titles like in the Humble bundle and for big commercial titles streaming services like OnLive, as it should be

Perhaps if DirectX could somehow be cracked and made available on Linux distros.

I thank the Wine developers for having done this. But every time that happens, it's a step behind as Microsoft releases a new DirectX version. The one thing keeping Wine relevant is that PC games without Windows XP support fail to sell: see Halo 2 and Shadowrun. Games have to remain compatible with versions of Windows that make up the majority of installations despite that they have left mainstream support, which means Wine can support this Windows version's last DirectX version.

Halo 2 and Shadowrun are bad examples. They came out right when Vista was new, and way over 90% of the Windows install base was still on XP. 71.97% of Windows gamers on Steam now have Vista or above, and people on XP are likely to have aging hardware now. I'd expect any new game project starting today to completly ignore XP, and a majority of releases by the end of 2011 to start pushing Vista/7 only support pretty hard.

That is kind of a bummer, although after such a long time of silence, it was certainly quite expected (also, I guess that the Mac version of that game, which was also announced a long time ago, got axed quietly as well).

What I would find more interesting however, would be whether the Unreal Engine 3 itself was ported into a workable state, so it could be used for other porting projects in the future. Because although I do not care too much about the Unreal Tournament 3 game itself, having the Unreal Engine 3 on Linux could at least open some interesting possibilities either for other games being ported or for a developer studio using the Engine in a future game and then doing simultaneous cross-platform development.

Because if you look at the list [wikipedia.org] of games using the Unreal Engine 3, that list of projects is rather impressive (for example, the entire Mass Effect series uses the Engine) and having such a widely used Engine available on Linux would be a boon, I think, maybe even for smaller Indie developers willing to do Linux development (depending on how expensive those licensing terms are).

Technically, porting should be possible, as the Unreal Engine 3 already runs on Windows, PS3, Xbox 360 and even MacOS X and iOS now, so it has shown that it is portable. And before you ask, I am not concluding that because Epic did an iOS port that it automatically runs on Mac OS X as well, although those two share a decent amount of similarities making the jump between those two platforms a good deal easier. No, actually, with Borderlands now having a Mac port [feralinteractive.com], there are already two titles on Mac OS X using the Unreal Engine 3 that I know of (the other one being Star Trek DAC), so there is proof it runs on the Mac. I know that those are only two titles and only one you could possibly call an AAA title, but sadly, as far as I know, that is still more titles available than on Linux:(

So I hope Ryan Gordon at least got the Engine ported, so future projects can use it on Linux. Because although losing the game sucks a little, having the Engine could at least give some hope for some better future developments in Linux gaming. It sure could use some.

Commercial games are, for the most part, dead on the Linux desktop. There are some occasional exceptions but for the most part, if you want a big-name game to appear on Linux you're gonna have to go use WINE as native builds probably won't exist. That said, there are still quite a lot of decent older games which have Linux ports and Ryan does continue development on ports for commercial when he can.

I think if you really want to avoid disappointment with regards to Linux gaming and want to continue enjoying gaming on Linux... get used to indy games, and forget the big-budget commercial stuff. Indy developers need all the audience they can get and as the Humble Bundles have shown, Linux users are often the most generous per purchase due to a desperate need for games.:)

Big-name commercial studios like EPIC and iD have abandoned Linux (unlike his previous games John Carmack has expressed a certain doubt about supporting Linux with Rage). It would certainly be NICE if we could get more commercial support, but until that happens, it's less depressing to just aim for indy games.

Or emulators. Quite frankly, all those old console games are still quite good and work well on Linux (NES, SNES, Genesis, etc.). Sure the graphics aren't as flashy, but they're still fun nonetheless. BTW, I got the ROMs from the carts I own.

Commercial games are, for the most part, dead on the Linux desktop. There are some occasional exceptions but for the most part, if you want a big-name game to appear on Linux you're gonna have to go use WINE as native builds probably won't exist.

It's a third person High Fantasy RPG action game that immerses players deep into the awe inspiring fantasy world of Dilogus, allowing them to experience it from multiple perspectives of six unique characters in both single player and co-operative multiplayer mode on Linux and Windows platforms.

Yeah, Linux game development has to start somewhere.... You can't expect, EA, Epic, ID, etc. to just say, "We're now developing for $NEW_PLATFORM" without watching others first test the waters.

I think if you really want to avoid disappointment with regards to Linux gaming and want to continue enjoying gaming on Linux... get used to indy games, and forget the big-budget commercial stuff. Indy developers need all the audience they can get [...]

Big-name commercial studios like EPIC and iD have abandoned Linux (unlike his previous games John Carmack has expressed a certain doubt about supporting Linux with Rage).

To avoid disappointment with regards to Any Gaming I choose Indy games. As a developer myself, I'm excited about the state of Linux gaming; To me Linux gaming looks like a large, ripe, and untapped market.

Demand for Linux games does exist. John Carmack is purposefully misleading... He sells a Game engine that doesn't run on Linux & isn't going to advocate making games on any platform that his engine doesn't run on...

Cross Platform is the future. Mac is a Unix. Linux is a Unix. Macs & "PCs" have the same guts these days. Rage runs on Unix... Not supporting Linux is stupid. Start with cross platform code (or engine), and you don't ever have to "port". Thus, you get additional market presence for $0.00.

Carmack has invested tons of time into developing for Apple and Microsoft platforms instead of investing time in truly cross platform engine code. As a game developer, (NOT an Engine Designer) it just doesn't make sense to use an Engine that's not cross platform. Why purposefully exclude a section of the market when it's not necessary? [ogre3d.org]

The big guys will let the little guys innovate first... Add small carp to a big empty pond, watch them grow... Where the big fish are absent, the little fish reign supreme (proof: iPhone/iPad & Android gaming markets). The big guys arn't stupid, just misleading. Steve Jobs said, "No one wants a tablet PC", and then develops an iPad... In the past Carmack has expressed "doubts" about games in the browser and on mobile platforms, yet now has both mobile and browser games.

Don't be fooled, he'll makes games for Linux after others have already blazed the trails and "built out" the market.

Dunno, but I'd sure like to ask the devs of Torchlight that question. Why intentionaly exclude a Linux port considering they used a cross-platform engine? It blows the mind.

Granted, it later turned out to run ok under Wine... but in the meantime I was undecided and waited until the game was up on offer for $5. If there was a native Linux port I'd have payed the full $20 from the start. That's $15 they cheated themselves out of. All this while most indy devs out there would be aghast at the thought of throwing $15 out the window like that.

...I wonder if a port is really necessary? WINE seems to work quite well for a large number of Windows games.

The Unreal Tournament 3 (Black Edition) on Steam works just fine on Wine/Crossover/Cedega. I remember reading a while back that Ryan "Icculus" Gordon was working on the port, however the proprietary PhysX engine was really holding the whole process up. Ageia, at the time in 2007, did not want PhysX on Linux. I honestly don't know if that stance has changed since NVidia acquired the company. It wouldn't matter if that stance had changed, nobody in their right mind would seriously expect Epic to spend ti

UT3 is bargin bin material because it sucked. You can't expect to sell it full price on a smaller platform and make money when it's just easier to buy the bargin bin Windows version if you really want to play the awful game.

It makes more sense to use winelib and to otherwise attempt to make your game run well under Wine. Then you don't have to provide support for Linux. I mean, from a commercial, big box standpoint, that is. For small games it makes total sense to have a Linux version. On the other hand, for small games it makes total sense to develop the game to be cross-platform to begin with because you won't be running into the limitations of the common cross-platform toolkits, or at least not too often.

It was actually some stuff-up about IP, I think (some prebuilt technology they licensed for the game that they couldn't release as they wished). Ryan Gordon did most of the port, and was basically ready to release, then it was shuttered.

Total dollars spent versus the cost of the port. All the average says is how much a few people are willing to pay, but if that comes from a hundred Linux customers versus a thousand Windows customers, that's only $136.20 from Linux compared to $628.00 from Windows. And that ignores the cost of the port.

Looking at the pie chart on the Humble Indie Bundle [humblebundle.com] site, Linux accounted for just under a quarter of sales while Windows was more than half of sales. Total sales was $879k, so Windows was roughly $450k

According to the chart on the website, Linux sales currently make up just under a quarter of total revenue for the Humble Bundle 2. (For the original Humble Bundle it was a full quarter, but that had Linux versions of the games that actually worked.)

Total revenue right now is $861,710.88, let's say $850k. Linux users are just under a quarter of that, let's say 22%. So Linux users are responsible for $187k. The average Linux contribution is $13.61, so that's circa 13700 Linux buyers. Of note, the top contributor paid $2k, so no one Linux user is accountable for the vast majority of the $187k or anything like that. With sample size that large you can be pretty sure the numbers are meaningful.

Fact one: as of *right now* the total number of purchases is about 116,000.Fact two: as of *right now*, the *largest* contribution was only $2000 dollars. (The top ten contributions are listed, and they go down quickly from that $2000 figure - #10 is currently $500, so by definition, all the remaining contributions are less than $500, unless the statistics they are reporting are outright lies. It is very likely that the vast majority of users would be donating less than $100.)Fact three: as of *right now*, the total sales volume in dollars is $869,711

Put all the facts together, and you get a picture that the $869,000 was raised through a LOT of fairly small contributions. Or, at least, no ONE SINGLE donator made a large enough contribution to significantly throw off the averages. In order for one person to throw it off, they would need to make a donation many orders of magnitude larger (say $100,000-200,000), but that is *simply* not the case since we know the largest donation was only $2000.

It would really behoove you, when the GGP says to go look at the statistics on humblebundle.com, to actually GO LOOK AT THE STATISTICS, instead of making posts which show you obviously didn't bother to look over them at all, instead preferring to make specious arguments that are directly contradicted by the data HAD YOU BOTHERED TO LOOK FIRST.

I'm not sure why you've made it your crusade to post the same "meaningless statistics" reply to every post on this story. My only conclusion is that you simply don't care about real facts unless they prove your view of "linux users being cheap" to be the correct one.

What are you talking about? I've only mentioned it once. Well, twice if you count me replying to the person who commented on my post, and this post is only my third in this entire story. How is that a "crusade to post the same...reply to ever

The number you're referencing is worthless without statistics. Maybe they only sold ten linux copies but one buyer paid $100 while everyone else only paid pennies.

It's not worthless at all in this context. It was posted to refute the statement that "Linux users refuse to pay for their software". Say what you want about the statistics but one thing that is clear is Linux users did pay for the bundle.

Reason. Linux users refuse to pay for their software so it's not worth targeting it as a platform.

Reason: Ports are years late and often cost more than the original launch price while the Windows version is already in the bargain bin. A rational being will realize that the 30£ = ~$47 [linuxgamepublishing.com] vs 5$ [amazon.com] will very soon pay for a Windows license, hell even a dedicated Windows PC if you game a little. I'd love to buy more Linux versions, but not at such a craptastic value.

I've bought several Linux games now, NWN (Diamond ed.), Quake 3 & 4, and Doom 3. For each, I actually bought the Windows version, then downloaded the Linux client for free from the developer's website. In NWN case, I actually only bought the Windows version for the license key, even the data was available for download.

Support contracts from enterprise customers. Now what does it have to do with the sorry state of Linux on the desktop and the willingness of
Linux desktop users to pay for commercial software? Do you believe that selling expensive support contracts for a game is a viable option for
software companies?

Reason. Linux users refuse to pay for their software so it's not worth targeting it as a platform.

Actually, my personal experience has been different.

In general, the *nix guys I've met have an appreciation for well-crafted software and don't have a problem paying for it.

The Windows guys, on the other hand have absolutely no problem pirating anything and everything.

Obviously your mileage may vary... But I suspect there was more to this than simply "those tree-hugging open-source hippies won't pay!" Probably some bit of licensed technology that couldn't be released in an open source format.

My thoughts (as a long term linux user)...I have a certain amount of goodwill (ie money im willing to spend) but it only goes so far.. If a piece of software is significantly better than any free counterparts enough to justify its price tag then i'm quite happy to pay for it, if not then i would very much prefer to do without it.Now games i can always do without, but if they're good i'm quite happy to spend a reasonable sum.

Windows users on the other hand have already paid for a mediocre os, and have probab

Are you sure it didn't have more to do with UT3 being an extremely unpopular game? I mean, justified or not, no one really played UT3 all that much. It just couldn't compare to either UT99 nor UT2K4 in any way aside from it's grungy atmosphere and shiny graphics.

For gaming, running a Winbox makes sense. Computers are trivially expensive nowadays, so run several if you like and enjoy the benefits.

There isn't a need to CHOOSE between operating systems. Run one, some, or many. This is a geek forum, no? You can have all the computers you like, and with little effort you can have more than you'll ever need.

Complaining that Linux doesn't run popular games is like complaining your pliers make a lousy hammer.